Checkpoint Charlie as tourist attraction. Viewed from
the American sector, the ersatz cabin has been decorated with an image
of a Soviet soldier. The reverse side shows an American soldier (June
2003)Checkpoint Charlie was a crossing point between East and West
Berlin during the Cold War. Others on the Autobahn to the West were
Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt and Checkpoint Bravo at Dreilinden,
southeast of Wannsee, named from the NATO phonetic alphabet. Many other
checkpoints existed, some for German citizens, others for foreigners and
members of Allied forces. Checkpoint Charlie is at the junction of
Friedrichstraße with Zimmerstraße and - amazingly - Mauerstraße ('Wall
Street') in the Friedrichstadt neighborhood, in the heart of Berlin,
which was divided by the Berlin Wall. The Soviets simply called it the
Friedrichstraße Crossing Point.

Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing
the separation of east and west, and – for the East Germans – a gateway
to freedom. It frequently featured in spy movies and books, such as
those by John le Carré.

The checkpoint was curiously asymmetrical. During its 27-year
active life, the infrastructure on the Eastern side was expanded to
include not only the wall, watchtower and zig-zag barriers, but a
multi-lane shed where cars and their occupants were checked. However the
American authorities, perhaps not wanting to concede that the division
of Germany might be anything other than a temporary aberration, never
erected any permanent buildings, and made do with the iconic wooden
shed.

Today, the museum next to the checkpoint struggles to keep alive
the memory of what is now something between an embarrassment and a
tourist attraction.

Early escapesThe Berlin Wall was erected with great efficiency by the
East German government in 1961, but naturally there were many means of
escape that they had not anticipated. Checkpoint Charlie was initially
blocked only by a gate; a citizen of the GDR (East Germany) smashed a
car through it to escape, so a strong pole was erected. Another escapee
approached the barrier in a convertible, took the windscreen down at the
last moment and slipped under the barrier. This was repeated two weeks
later and the East Germans duly lowered the barrier and added uprights.

Diplomatic incident of October 1961The four powers governing Berlin ( the United States,
the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union) had agreed at Potsdam
that their personnel would not be stopped by German police in any zone.
But on 22 October 1961, just two months after the construction of the
Wall, the US Mission Chief, E. Allan Lightner, was stopped in his car
(which had occupation force licence plates) while going to a theatre in
East Berlin. General Lucius D. Clay, Kennedy's Special Adviser in West
Berlin, decided to demonstrate American resolve.

Clay respondsClay sent an American diplomat, Albert Hemsing, to probe
the border. While probing in a diplomatic car, Hemsig was stopped by
East German transport police asking to see his passport. Once his
identity became clear, military police were rushed in. The East German
Transport Police escorted the diplomatic car as it drove into East
Berlin. The shocked GDR police got out of the way. The car continued and
the soldiers returned to West Berlin. A British diplomat - apparently
either out of the loop or attempting to conciliate - was stopped the
next day and just handed over his passport, and Clay was furious.

Perhaps this contributed to his decision to make the attempt
again: on 27 October 1961, Mr. Hemsing again approached the zonal
boundary in a diplomatic car. But Clay did not know how the Soviets
would respond, so just in case, he had brought tanks with an infantry
battalion to the nearby Tempelhof airfield. To everyone's relief the
same routine was played out as before. The US troops and Jeeps went back
to West Berlin, and the tanks waiting behind also went home.

Tank stand-off

Soviet tanks face U.S. tanks at Checkpoint Charlie,
1961-10-27Immediately afterwards, 33 Russian tanks drove to the
Brandenburg Gate. Curiously, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev claimed in
his memoirs that as he understood it, the American jeeps had seen
Russian tanks coming and retreated. Col. Jim Atwood, then Commander of
the US Military Mission to West Berlin, disagreed in later statements.

Ten of these tanks continued to Friedrichstraße, and stopped just
50 to 100 yards from the Checkpoint. The US tanks turned back towards
the Checkpoint, stopping an equal distance from it on the American side.
And they just waited. From the 27th at 17:00 until the 28th at about
11:00, the respective troops faced each other.

As per standing orders, both groups of tanks were loaded. The US
Garrison in West Berlin, then NATO, and finally the US Strategic Air
Command (SAC), were brought to increased alert (Defense Condition 3?).
Both groups of tanks had orders to fire when fired upon. If there had
been a negligent discharge, the consequences might have been very
serious, although both superpowers' leaders understood that Berlin was
not worth general war.[citation needed]

Stand-off resolvedKhrushchev and U.S. President John F. Kennedy agreed
(according to one source, via a channel established just a month before)
to reduce tensions by withdrawing the tanks. The Soviet checkpoint had
direct communications to General Anatoly Gribkov at Soviet Army High
Command, who in turn was on the phone to Khrushchev. The US checkpoint
contained a Military Policeman on the telephone to the HQ of the US
Military Mission in Berlin, which in turn was in communication with the
White House. Kennedy offered to go easy over Berlin in the future in
return for the Soviets removing their tanks first. Thinking they had won
a political victory, the Soviets agreed. In reality Kennedy was very
much in favour of the Wall: "It's not a very nice solution, but a wall
is better than war." [citation needed]

A Soviet tank moved 5 yards backwards first; then an American
followed suit. One by one the tanks withdrew. But Gen. Bruce Clark, US
Commander in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany: West Germany), was
said to have been concerned about Clay's conduct and Clay returned to
retirement in May 1962. Gen. Clark's assessment may, however, have been
incomplete: Clay's firmness had a great effect on the German population,
led by Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt and FRG Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

Death of Peter FechterOn 17 August 1962, Peter Fechter was wounded in the hip,
shot by East German guards while trying to escape from East Berlin. His
body lay tangled in a barbed wire fence, slowly bleeding to death, in
full view of the world’s media. American soldiers could not rescue him
because he was a few yards inside the Soviet sector. East German border
guards were reluctant to approach him for fear of provoking American
soldiers, one of whom had shot an East German border guard just days
earlier. Over an hour later Mr. Fechter’s body was removed by the East
German guards.

A spontaneous demonstration formed on the American side of the
checkpoint, protesting the actions of the East and the inactions of the
West: a few days later, the crowd stoned Soviet buses driving towards
the Tiergarten Soviet War Memorial, in the British sector. The Soviets
tried to escort the buses with Armoured Personnel Carriers ("APCs").
Thereafter, the Soviets were only allowed to cross via the Sandkrug
Bridge crossing point (which was the nearest to Tiergarten) and were
prohibited from bringing in APCs.

Western units were deployed in the middle of the night in early
September with live armaments and vehicles, in order to enforce the ban.
None of this ammunition was ever expended, although East German border
guards in 1973 opened fire with automatic weapons, leaving bulletholes
in Checkpoint Charlie, but no US personnel were hurt.

Checkpoint Charlie today

The Haus am Checkpoint Charlie museum opened two years after the
wall was erected Replica of the famous sign at the former East-West Berlin border
Although the wall opened in November 1989, the checkpoint remained an
official crossing for foreigners and diplomats until German
reunification in October 1990 when the booth was removed; it is now in
the Allied Museum in Zehlendorf. The course of the former wall is now
marked on the street with a line of bricks. A copy of the booth and sign
that once marked the border crossing was later erected where Checkpoint
Charlie once stood. Near the location of the booth is the Haus am
Checkpoint Charlie, a private museum opened in 1963 by Rainer
Hildebrandt, which was augmented with a new building in the 1990s.

Developers tore down the East German checkpoint watchtower in
2000. This famous symbol of the Cold War was removed in a clandestine
manner so as to attract a minimum amount of attention. The watchtower,
which was the last surviving original Checkpoint Charlie structure, was
demolished to make way for offices and shops. The city tried to save the
tower but failed as it was not classified as an historic landmark. As of
January 2006, nothing has been built at this site and the original
proposals for development have been shelved.